How many times have you felt like dropping everything, heading to the Mountain in search of peace and clarity, and returning to the world cleansed? If only it were that simple. The path to salvation is as narrow and as difficult to walk as the razor’s edge.
This week on “Picture Perfect,” we journey through the awe-inspiring landscapes of India and Tibet, even as we feel our way to the inner realms of spirit and psyche, with an hour of Himalayan adventures.
The Himalayas, in film, have frequently been the source of enlightenment; though occasionally their overwhelming influence has also led to madness. Intriguingly, the latter is the case in the Powell-Pressburger classic, “Black Narcissus” (1947). Psychological and emotional tensions abound in this tale of repressed nuns struggling to maintain their composure in a voluptuous Himalayan valley.
The stunning cinematography was by Jack Cardiff, and Brian Easdale (of “The Red Shoes” fame) wrote the music. Incredibly, the entire film was shot in England, mostly at Pinewood Studios. From a purely visual standpoint, “Black Narcissus” must be one of the most beautiful films ever made. It’s also one of the craziest, with unlikely object-of-desire Mr. Dean driving the sisters to the brink.
The Himalayas also form the backdrop to “Seven Years in Tibet” (1997), based on a memoir of Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer. Harrer escapes from a British internment camp in India during the Second World War. He travels across Tibet to its capital, Lhasa, where he eventually becomes the tutor of the 14th Dalai Lama. In the film, Brad Pitt plays Harrer. John Williams wrote the music, and Yo-Yo Ma performs the cello solos.
“The Razor’s Edge” (1946) tells the story of a traumatized World War I veteran, who sets off in search of some kind of transcendent meaning to his existence. He finds it in India, at a Himalayan monastery. The 1946 adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham’s novel (which he claimed was thinly-veiled fact) features Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney, and Ann Baxter. The music is by Alfred Newman, who will conduct a selection from his score.
Finally, we’ll hear a suite from the Frank Capra classic, “Lost Horizon” (1937). Based on the book by James Hilton, the film stars Ronald Colman and an outstanding supporting cast, including Jane Wyatt, Thomas Mitchell, Edward Everett Horton, H.B. Warner, and Sam Jaffe. The novel, and the film, brought the term “Shangri-La” into popular usage, a Utopian paradise hidden in a secluded Himalayan valley, a place of ageless beauty and serenity.
“Lost Horizon” provided composer Dimitri Tiomkin (a pupil of Alexander Glazunov) with his first major project. The result is one of his most colorful scores. The recording is one of the gems of RCA’s Classic Film Scores series, originally issued in the early 1970s. Made in the presence of the composer, it features 157 performers, with the chorus standing on a platform behind the conductor, Charles Gerhardt, and the various percussionists stationed in the encircling balcony.
I can’t guarantee that you’ll find enlightenment, but there will be plenty to awe and inspire in these Himalayan adventures, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, this Saturday evening at 6:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
